Ireland should accept our share of migrants, just as we were welcomed

Before the Great Famine, the population of Ireland was approximately 8.2m people. Mass starvation caused a death toll of close to one million people and another one million were forced to emigrate to the US, Canada and Great Britain.

It was the greatest catastrophe in the history of Ireland. The potato crop failed and even though the cereal harvest was good, the ordinary people had no access to it, under the English feudal system.

The emigrants travelled on rough cattle boats, many dying in transit. Now, 170 years later, an Irish Naval vessel, LE Eithne, has been deployed to the Mediterranean to rescue starving migrants from inflatable craft, fibreglass boats and barges, northwest of the Syrian capital of Tripoli. They are fleeing a similar plight.